As said, “the rules change” from Pack to Pack. Usually, they conform to the standards at the District Level, if there is a District competition. My son’s old Pack was run by the larger of Yuma’s two American Legion Posts; and once they got their own track, it was “Game On”, with heats for Cubs, siblings, parents, and even Legionaires. The most fun is watching a couple of retired Marine non-coms from the Viet Nam era, fighting rematch after rematch to determine who has the best car; and BOTH of them trying to “keep it clean” as they verbally sparred in front of the Cubs.
One year, the “finals” for the Legionaires was a complete upset when a little ARMY Pfc home on leave, built her own little blue truck; complete with a hay bale in the back and “Cowgirl Racing” painted on the hood. She ended up .2 seconds faster than the “Old Guys cars”.
My son (he’s now almost 16) will, when invited to race still brings out his favorite “personal car”, my '64 Lincoln ‘Deathmobile’ (from the movie “Animal House”), and his older sister’s li’l blue truck with the hay bale.
That’s looking AWESOME! NO WAY am I showing Jr. that creation. We have those Ninjago guys at home too and he’ll want THAT. Maybe we can “lease” yours for next year.
some body filler and a frontal assault with the Dremmel and “The Mouse” sander… a little hand sanding by Evan
and this is where we is… a few more hours “sculpting” and we should be about 90%. Evan was a little upset last PM. He hit the side of the Ninjago’s body with the “Mouse” sander, THEN dad forgot to hit “save photo” on the cell during an action shot of Evan sanding with the power tools. Rookie mistake.
Evans pet peeve… WAITING FOR PAINT TO DRY!! So, some discussion and an agreement later we started some details.
…and this is where we’re at! Still need to put on his “hands” and there is some work to do polishing the axles, but Evan is happy and proud. Now if the durn thing will go down hill…
Well thanks Mark. Things never seem to come out quite as nice as the “minds eye” plans them though, do they?
Al, to answer your question… seems I’ll not be involved in next years build. I’ve been told my services will NOT be required in '13. In all honesty, Evan does alot more of the work than most would believe. He tells me what we will build. I rough cut the shape HE chooses. I do the painting/priming. HE does the sanding. HE decides when every step is “good enough” to move on to the next. Kid has a good eye for details.
Well, this AM was the PWD. Evan was pretty darn proud… lots of “OooOoo’s & Ahhh’s” when he walked in with his car. All the kids knew what it was!
The car weighed in right on 5oz.
Evan took 1st today with an average (scale) speed of 198.0 MPH. He beat the 2nd place car by a full 2 MPH. Fastest run for his car was 199.7 MPH. 200 MPH remains elusive.
Evan also won “Best in show”. I told him “Now we have to trailer the thing everywhere!” He thought that was hilarious. Next stop, regionals on the 24th, which happens to be his birthday.
One thing I did when helping with a pinewood derby car was put the little weights to meet specs as far forward as possible. That way, the heaviest part of the car drops off incline as soon as possible to help pull the rest of the car down faster. I think we had about 75% of weight on the front wheels. It seemed to help a good bit. For that truck, under the front bumper would work well. Not sure if they have since wised up to that. As you said with the rocket, I also read the rules for what it didn’t say we couldn’t do.
B! Funny you should say that! We ran into one of the families from the PWD. The son raced with the “Tiger cubs”. (Year behind Evan) The dad had a TON of questions for me. One of the questions was “Where did you ever get the plans?”
“Plans? Deedjoo say… PLANS? WE DO NOT NEED NO STINKING PLANS!”
The guy was stunned when I told him “Evan had an idea, and we just looked at a LEGO character.”
So, some discussion and an agreement later we started some details.
He thought that was hilarious. Next stop, regionals on the 24th, which happens to be his birthday.
WE DO NOT NEED NO STINKING PLANS!”